Entities responsible for responding to service request calls may be designated as responsible for service request calls originating from loci within a designated area. Responsible areas may be designated in a geographic system as polygons. Service request calls may be accompanied by information relating to the locus of origin of the call to aid in routing the call to the entity responsible for responding to the service request presented by the service request call.
A geographic system, such as by way of example and not by way of limitation a geographic information system (GIS), may include address information, street line segments and serving area polygons, and may rise a specific set of polygons to determine a specific service responsibility. Different polygon layers, or sets of polygons, may be used to differentiate between multiple types of service. Preferably the polygons for a specific geographic area and a specific service layer should not overlap and should not have areas that are not covered by a specific serving area polygon. That is, preferably there are no duplications of service area responsibility and no gaps in service area responsibility. In this description the term serving area polygon is intended to refer to a specific polygon within one set of serving area polygons. A location, such as a locus of origin of a service request call, may be used with multiple layers or polygon sets to determine different types of service responsibilities for the same location. For example, one set of polygons or polygon layers may be used to determine call routing to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP; sometimes referred to as a Public Safety Answering Position), another set of polygons or polygon layers may be used to determine call routing to police responsibility entity, another set of polygons or polygon layers may be used to determine call routing to a medical emergency response entity, and another set of polygons or polygon layers may be used to determine call routing for fire emergency response entity.
Some applications require determining service area based on a civic address. For example, determining responsibility by defining service areas and mapping a given location as residing within a given service area is a feature of NG9-1-1 (Next Generation 9-1-1) call processing when a caller's location is represented as a civic address. Managing and improving the data quality of the GIS database used for NG9-1-1 call processing is desirable to create a high quality and reliable NG9-1-1 call routing solution.
A civic address can be used to determine call routing and emergency responder (police, fire, medical, poison) responsibility by finding that a corresponding street line segment completely resides within a given jurisdictional polygon. If the corresponding street line segment does not completely reside within a given jurisdictional polygon, creating a change tracking ticket to eventually update the geographic information system database information will result in better call routing algorithms over time.
For purposes of illustration, by way of example and not by way of limitation, the present invention will be described in the context of an emergency service network in the United States, commonly referred to as a 9-1-1 network. The teachings of the present invention are equally applicable, useful and novel in other special number calling systems, such as maintenance service networks, college campus security networks, abbreviated number networks for calling commercial services and other networks.
By way of further example and not by way of limitation, a user may engage in a 9-1-1 call seeking emergency services in an excited or bewildered frame of mind. Such a rattled user may benefit from guidance provided by the emergency service call answering position, such as a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP; sometimes referred to as a Public Safety Answering Position). It may be especially important to ascertain the locus of origin of the service request call in order that a proper responsible agency may be identified for rendering the requested service. In a situation involving an emergency service request it may be important that a local emergency responder—such as fire, police or emergency services—be automatically designated to receive an emergency service request call. Such automatic designation may be carried out when location information is provided accompanying the service request call and may be employed to effect routing the call to a responsible party in a service area responsible for serving the locus indicated by the location information accompanying the call.
Location information that may accompany a service request call such as an emergency request call may be in the form of civic address information indicating the locus of origin of the call. For purposes of this description, the term “civic address” may include, by way of example and not by way of limitation, any textual based address format. Such textual based format may be referred to as street address, civic address, postal address, jurisdictional address or MSAG (Master Street Address Guide) addresses. This description uses the term “civic” to refer to all the above examples where the address is defined in a textual form that includes, but is not limited to, country, state, city, street name and house number.
A geographic database may include address information, street line segments and serving area polygons. As with any database, there may be errors contained in a geographical database relied upon for identifying service responsibilities.
It would be useful to have a method and system for automatic identification of presence of errors in database information as early as may be possible, and to record the identified errors for later treatment and correction.
It would be useful to have a method and system for identifying a data deficiency or other error during the process of determining service responsibility and to record the identified errors for later treatment and correction.